Training Thoughts

For his dinner training, Zane and I headed outside. First we worked on Choose to Heel. He's still preferring to go to side rather than heel, so I wanted to work on heel more. I made counter-clockwise circles. That way heel position was on the inside of the circle and it was easier to get there than to try to run to keep up on the outside. Some of my circles got very small to help him succeed! By the end I was able to get 2-4 steps in heel position before the click/treat. While we were out there, we also played the Name Game. When he looked at something, I'd call his name. As soon as his head turned, I'd click. He responded every time.

Then we sat on the back porch. I found a random object (a screw top to a super soaker maybe?) and he did paw touches to it. Then he did hand touches with his nose. He will now turn to the side and take up to 2 steps forward to touch. Then we worked on downs. He likes to flop onto one hip for his downs. That will come later. . . right now I want nice fold-back Sphinx downs. So he only gets a click if his body is centered.

So my thoughts on training today centered around how to help him be successful and maintaining criteria so it was very clear what I wanted.